


Jack Slash more like Jack Smash That Gash

by TopHat



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Edging, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 21:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18290312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat
Summary: Layla needs to talk to Jack, and goes about it in all the wrong ways.





	Jack Slash more like Jack Smash That Gash

Jack slept with his shirt open. Layla had seen him in different clothes, everything from the rags of a near-death experience to a fresh suit fit to perfection, the tailor’s dying work. Given half a chance though he’d always return to the same combination of dress shirt, dark jeans, and some sort of work boot, a blend of steelworking Randian hero and frat boy, liberally doused in the blood of whomever was unlucky enough to have ended up the subject of his affections. With a hair less charisma it would’ve come across as lazy, an immature idea of what careless success looked like.

Jack inhaled, turning over in his sleep. Layla smiled appreciatively at what it did to his abs.

It was only arrogance if you didn’t pull it off.

“Like what you see?” The words drew Layla’s attention away from sculpted flesh and up to amused blue eyes. Awake then. He had his hair swept back, a little mussed from his nap, and the confidence turned the mess of dark locks into another mark of self-assured gravitas.

She didn’t flush. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught her looking, and it wouldn’t be the last. At this point she figured it was intentional, and that he didn’t mind. “Of course. Great things deserve to be admired.”

“It’s mostly Bonesaw’s work, you know. A little tune up.” That did get to her. A little. She hadn’t wanted a brat along, powers be damned, but Crimson had gotten into a fight with Crawler over the rights to hunt a progressive changer and lost. Handily. With a ready-to-mold parahuman at hand Jack had leaped at the chance to adopt, and the Siberian seemed to take a liking to the girl. The Slaughterhouse Nine was Nine, and all was right in the world.

Right, but not pleasant.

“She’s a child,” Layla said bluntly, floating across the room. “And not even an interesting one. Ask her to kill a hero, to kill anyone, of her own free will, and watch her falter. Stumble. Fail.” She settled onto the bed beside Jack, the distant song of silica shifting as she began to form a dome around them. Protection, but not privacy. Lions did not hide from mice. “Just put the girl out of her misery and be done with it.”

“Hmm.” Jack made a show of thinking about it, absentmindedly pensive as Layla pushed him back down onto the borrowed mattress, pinning his arms above his head and pressing a kiss to his collarbone. Then to his neck. Then his jawline. “I don’t know. I’ve put a lot of work into breaking her just the right way. It’d be a shame to throw that all away when we haven’t even seen-”

Layla cut him off. More sounds came out, probably important sounds, but they were muffled by the seal of their lips and the war of tongues. She slowly lowered her hips to his groin, denim rough against her bare thighs, and ground slowly. The small motions aroused a growing heat, and she felt Jack’s hands struggled against the glass manacles. They didn’t go anywhere, his merely-human strength not nearly enough to fight through the restraints.

Helpless.

Layla pulled back, panting, and bared her teeth in triumph. A bulge pressed between her legs, and she had already started shedding her layers of glass to alleviate the heat coursing through her. “No. Either she’s one of us or she’s not. No inbetween. No growth. Nothing. Make her do something, do something big, something that you have to believe in.” That same glass which slipped off of her slid onto Jack, shredding the remaining clothes between the two of them. “Tell me that she’s already a monster. That she just doesn’t know it yet. Then, once we’re done here” —Layla reached down and seized Jack’s manhood in a grip just a little too firm— “you’re going to go out and show her the truth.”

Jack clucked his tongue, expression falling and cock softening. “And you just had to ruin the mood.”

Layla froze, the prickly feeling of an invisible blade gently tracing a pattern against her neck.

“Now if you had left out that last part we’d be fucking right now,” he said, staring unerringly into her eyes. She couldn’t look away to try to find the blade, to try to find the threat, not without giving him an excuse to cut her throat. “But then you had to tell me what to do with the Nine.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The prickling grew more intense. Something wet ran down her neck, and Layla had to resist the urge to swallow.

Jack sighed. “Don’t be sorry. Sorry doesn’t fix anything. Be better.”

The prickling held for a moment longer, then ceased. “I think we should both get dressed now.”

Layla slipped off the bed, the broken shards of glass climbing back onto her body once more. Jack stood up himself, stepping out of the ruined remains of his jeans and heading over towards a blood-splattered dresser.

For a minute, the only sounds in the room were the rumble of opening and closing drawers and the rustle of shifting cloth.

Eventually Layla asked, “How did you do it?”

“Hmm?” Jack looked up from the two shirts he was examining, now going commando under a pair of suit pants just a little too short on him and more than a little wide at the waist.

“Your hands were empty. How did you...” Layla motioned to her neck, briefly touching the wet stain sliding down her skin.

Jack threw one of the shirts and away and shrugged the other one on, still open and baring his chest to the world. Once partially dressed he walked over to her, stopping well inside her personal space.

“As a matter of fact, my hands weren’t empty,” he murmured, one finger moving up to trace the lower part of her helmet, right along her jaw. The song of the glass changed, and another shiver ran through Layla as she felt the prickling against her skin.

Jack pulled her in for another kiss, just dry lips, then pushed her away. “You’re right. Bonesaw needs to understand that she’s a monster.” He started for the door, turning his back on Layla and buttoning up his shirt, the picture of nonchalance. “I’ll think of something to get her committed. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Layla said, watching him leave.

The words tasted like ash.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Pericardium for the picture that inspired this, and to her, Woermhole, and frustratedFreeboota for betaing!


End file.
